Site Mobile Navigation

Carnegie Hall and Stagehands Settle Contract Dispute

The negotiations lasted more than a year and led to a strike that canceled Carnegie Hall’s planned opening night for the first time in the hall’s 122-year history. But after only two days, the dispute between Carnegie’s management and its stagehands was settled on Friday, and the hall announced that it was fully back in business.

The issues dividing Carnegie and Local 1 of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees were not the usual ones — salaries and benefits — but instead the union’s role in the new educational spaces that Carnegie is building above the hall, at a cost of about $230 million, and plans to open them next fall.

The union, which represents the employees who set up chairs and stands and move pianos and percussion instruments, among other things, wanted its members to work in the education wing. Carnegie employs five full-time stagehands, at an average individual compensation of more than $400,000 a year — more than most of the musicians who perform in the hall — as well as part-time workers as needed.

The hall’s position, voiced on Wednesday evening by both Clive Gillinson, its executive and artistic director, and Sanford I. Weill, its chairman, was that the education wing was a separate endeavor — that union stagehands were rightfully employed in concert halls but had no place in classrooms and studios. Employing union stagehands, Mr. Gillinson and Mr. Weill said, would siphon off money that should be going to education.

“The new agreement includes limited jurisdiction for I.A.T.S.E. Local 1 in Carnegie Hall’s newly created education wing,” the hall said in a statement, “in ways that will enable Carnegie Hall to create a flexible, hands-on learning environment for activities serving students, young artists and teachers, ensuring that the institution can meet all its education objectives.”

James J. Claffey Jr., the president of Local 1, did not return phone messages left at his office and on his cellphone on Friday. But his outgoing message sounded almost jubilant: Mr. Claffey said that he was “proudly reporting that as of 12 noon today, we have a deal at Carnegie Hall, and the strike is over.” He went on to describe the agreement as “a tremendous outcome, a four-year deal that everyone is proud of.”

The strike caused the cancellation of Wednesday night’s performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, although a concert on Thursday evening by the American Symphony Orchestra went on after union pickets were temporarily withdrawn.

Both sides stepped back from the brink — an extended strike could have battered Carnegie’s season while also costing the union public support — to reach an agreement that will largely preserve the education budget that Carnegie was seeking to protect.

As Mr. Gillinson explained it in an interview on Friday afternoon, “limited jurisdiction” means that Carnegie will hire a union stagehand — one to start, more only if needed — to work in the education wing. Mr. Gillinson would not discuss salaries but said that this stagehand would not be paid at the same rate as those who work in the performance spaces.

Photo

Clive Gillinson, Carnegie Hall’s executive and artistic director, said the accord gives the hall flexibility.Credit
Karsten Moran for The New York Times

“It is a separate agreement,” he said. “It is a new person, specifically for the education center.”

Moreover, the education wing will not be subject to the same restrictions as the concert halls on who can move or set up equipment.

“The most important thing,” Mr. Gillinson said, “is that it enables us to do everything we need to do in those spaces and to have the flexibility we need. The kids and teachers will be able to move chairs and music stands as they need to, and that’s exactly what we wanted. But at the same time, there are certain things — heavy cases that need to be moved in and out, for instance — for which we would have to hire somebody in any case. And having a union stagehand do those things is totally appropriate. So we’re in a good place.”

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

Someone who is familiar with the talks, but who declined to speak for attribution because he is involved in other union negotiations, said: “Carnegie did a good job of dealing with its needs. This is a face-saving compromise for both sides.”

The new position begins when the education wing opens. Mr. Gillinson said he could not give a specific date.

Asked how heavy a piece of equipment needed to be before a stagehand was called, Mr. Gillinson laughed and said: “Heavy enough that a person says, ‘I need some help from the union person.’ Kids can bring in their instruments, use the audiovisual equipment, move things around — it will be no different than working in any education center.”

A version of this article appears in print on October 5, 2013, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Compromise Settles Strike By Carnegie Stagehands. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe